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What Is A “Coming-of-age” Story?
Coming-of-age is a type of story in which a young person becomes an adult, or heads in that direction. There are many children’s stories (or stories about children) about a child losing their innocence. When that character is a bit older (adolescent) then it’s called a coming-of-age story. Sometimes people think they know you. They know […]
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If I Stay by Gayle Forman Storytelling Tips
If I Stay by Gayle Foreman is a young adult novel published 2009. This book is beautifully plotted, and makes an excellent case study if writers are planning a story with an ‘alternating’ plot. WELCOME TO THE THIRD GOLDEN AGE This book is an excellent example of ‘The Third Golden Age Of Children’s Literature’, as described by […]
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Mothers In Children’s Literature
Mothers are either held up as paragons of selflessness, or they’re discounted and parodied. We often don’t see them in all their complexity. Novelist Edan Lepucki contemplates motherhood Mothers in fairy tales have a way of being absent, typically through untimely deaths (think Cinderella, Snow White or Beauty and the Beast) or thanks to storylines […]
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Sex In Stories For Teenagers
In October 2023 a study came out called Teens and Screams. It garnered much attention. The prevalence of ‘sl*ts’ and ‘wh*res’ in young adult literature and schoolyard banter is enough to make a feminist mother weep. Our daughters learn early the same sexually oppressive messages that we learnt: that female sexuality is a prize to […]